I was peeping through an old photo album today in the middle of cleaning the cat box and saw the picture of someone I refer to as “the bad boyfriend”.

I met him through an online BBS back in the days of the 2 line modems (1988). Tall, very thin, with a beard, he seemed intelligent and mysterious. We went out a few times and before you know it, he moved in to my meager little 2nd floor apartment in downtown Baltimore.

We were together -maybe- 6 months and it was during that time I learned what it meant to endure someone gaslighting me. Things I KNEW to be true, he lied about. And told me I was crazy. Everything I did was wrong, he said. He wore what little self-esteem I had to a damn nub.

Why did I allow this? Well, honestly, I hated to give up the best sex I had ever had. Like, he put me in some kind of trance. (I was 28, what do you want?) He was so bad but so good.

Of course, I found out that he was cavorting with someone else during this time and when I finally made the decision to kick his ass out, I gathered all his stuff and put it by the front door. Then, realizing I’d never have the opportunity to sleep with him again, unpacked it all and seduced him that night for one last time.

Then I told him to get out. (It sounds so brave now. I was a mess then. Like I said, I ran with whatever shred of self-esteem I had left.)

Saw him one last time after I had moved to Richmond VA. We went to the movies and fought on the way home. When I got out of the car, I walked over where he was standing and asked for my house key back. As he was taking it off the key ring, I got into a frenzy and grabbed it. He lifted his elbow (on purpose) and clipped me under the chin, knocking me over on the road.

“Look where your life is, Lisa. Get up.” said the voice in my head. I gathered my glasses that had fallen on the side and walked up the steps to my mother’s apartment. I didn’t want her to know (and I never told her all that had happened because I couldn’t bear her “I told you so” on top of shredded self-esteem and a messed up life).

I never spoke to or saw him again. He did pop up years later online in a strange way and didn’t know it was me. I longed to fuck with his head as he did mine but karma and whatnot.

Why all the reminiscing? Like I said, saw his picture today and played Sherlock on the googles. Turns out, he died in September. His brother posted something on his high school FB page that said he was “found deceased”. That’s all the info I can find.

It’s been almost 30 years since all that happened (Jeepers! Where has time gone??) but I remember a lot of it because it took me a year or more to get back to who I was before he came barreling through. I remember filing pages and pages and pages of my journal, doubting myself as he lied and lied and lied.

We had a short time together but I gained a lot of important life lessons. NEVER doubt my spidey sense – ever. And never let anyone tear me down like that.

I keep feeling these waves of sadness wash over me. I don’t think the sadness is mine but it’s possible, I suppose.

I felt it this morning and asked the Universe to return it to sender with love and consciousness and now it’s back again. I’ll be doing something, just working along and POOF! there it is. Just like a wave, ebbing in and out all day, every day.

It reminds me of how I felt a few days before Prince took his leave of the physical. I remember a deep melancholy that I knew without question wasn’t mine and there was no choice but to let it wash on through. My life changed in a profound way when P left. I wonder if this feeling is a portend of another shift.*

I feel myself moving away from the communities I’ve been in for many years as if I’ve learned what I needed and a new direction is showing up.

Things that I was fine with before Priestess Bootcamp now rub me the wrong way. It’s not a “I hate you” way, more of an “hmmm, what’s going on with this?” way.

Lots of shaking, shifting and growing happening.

It’s also a sign that I need to step away from politics more. I want to sit and cry when I look at what’s happening to our country. It’s been that way whenever I’m faced with gaslighting and I feel helpless. On one hand, I’m glad to see people awakening as much as they are and getting involved. On the other, it’s not happening fast enough and I feel like we are all slowly being boiled to death in that frog pot.

The only thing that’s making me happy these days are my Southern Sister books on Audible. When I think about writing a little cozy mystery book and then ask who cares about your dumb little stories, I remind myself that this book series almost single-handedly pull me out of the doldrums time after time. They are my go-to comfort space.

The last book that Anne George wrote in this series wraps things up and never made it to Audible (dammit!). I can’t bear for it to end so I have only made it through the first couple chapters.

With 45 in office for who knows how much longer, I might need to read it to myself and rock back and forth in the closet.

*(That one wasn’t bad. It was big, but not bad (for me, anyway. Not so much for Prince although he might disagree from his new space!).

Here’s a thing, I don’t overly care about the eclipse that’s slated for August 21. It’s only on my radar because of people on FB. But I do feel the energy of release and so I got a bee in my bonnet and unfriended a swath of people on said FB today.

It felt good to release a bunch of people (some I have no idea who they are or where I met them) who I neither follow nor comment on.

You probably know this about me but I don’t much care about the minutiae of your daily life if I don’t know you. So, I don’t follow many people (follow = have your stuff show up in my feed). I mostly follow and read pages. If I do follow and comment on your stuff, it’s because I really like you. :)

I unfriended people I was friends with many, many years ago and was really only staying so I could see what’s happening in their life. Guess what? It’s as boring as mine is.

And one person who I recently reconnected with who was very important to me many, many years go. We had a couple “remember this?” convos, one pretty deep one about a time where I felt I was unforgivably cruel to him back in the day (he didn’t remember it) and it felt like that part was complete. It must have been because he disappeared at that point, not answering a couple following messages. I take that as a sign that whatever I needed to receive from that re-connection was complete. BOOP! Unfriended. (Also, he’s hard core into Trump and yeah, no to that.)

Duty and I have been cleaning up around the house with some big chores before a small pool/cookout event in early September for the family. Cousin O’Love, husband and the Niece of Artsy-Fartsy will be in town from Seattle and there’s a bunch of birthdays clustered around so a celebration is in order.

It feels good to get rid of stuff – give it away, sell it, take it to the consignment store or (last option) trash it. Why I have all this STUFF I don’t know, other than some wee hoarding tendencies.

I completed the lead coach duties with Angella and we are both moving in different directions. At first, I was sad because all my friends are there in Utah (minus my wife, Christine, here in town) but I knew that something was coming and even if I didn’t know in the moment, I’d find out soon enough. That’s when the channeling work amped up and went in an interesting direction.

Level Two of the Priestess work starts in September and that’s going to be pretty intense so I won’t have a lot of extra time to play with re: my business. Good to get organized and moving. I’m creating a “Trust What You Get Academy” which will house the 4 courses I’ve already created on various topics related to trusting yourself + intuition and take it to the next logical step. There’s also “Merlin’s Potion Bar” coming soon and more work with Master Prince.

So the energies of release have been at play here in the Case de Snark. I am thankful for them. (And you!)

Listening to Prince’s “Piano and Microphone” tour highlights and damn if that man’s voice didn’t sound as good (if not better!) than it did at the beginning of his career. Just him and a piano and a crowd that loves him is everything.

The video that was below got deleted from YouTube, alas, showed him from about a month or two before he shuffled off and while he looks a bit frail (so so so thin), his voice is gorgeous. He was no longer the Prince who jumped off of 7 foot speakers or danced his ass off. At the end, as it was in the beginning, it was just him, his music and his voice. If you have to go, well, to my mind, that’s better than lots of other alternatives.

Getting older is something I generally try not to think about actively but once in a while, it smacks me in the head. Whether it’s a (literal) pain in my butt or a realization that I am just a couch potato and will ever be so. I dunno. Just a reckoning of who I am at the core of my being.

As long as I have my mind and my inner ear and my voice, I’m good to go.